


Murderbot's New Friend

by yhlee (etothey)



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pets, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 10:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothey/pseuds/yhlee
Summary: On the way to freedom, Murderbot makes one more friend than it was expecting to.  Takes place after All Systems Red.Written with the help of  Written? Kitten! (http://writtenkitten.net/).  Because Reasons.Thanks to Isis for the beta.





	Murderbot's New Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



My escape from Dr. Mensah, my favorite human, was well underway when I heard the noise. You would think that watching 397+ episodes of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, to say nothing of all the other hours of entertainment shows, would have taught me one thing if nothing else. Namely, that _nothing ever goes entirely to plan_.

The cargo transport called itself Blue-Green-Six, or more accurately, a sequence of lights that amounted to the same thing. It was currently humming to itself as we maintained a steady acceleration toward our destination. I recognized the tune as one of the dance numbers from Sanctuary Moon. Bots that are also ships might not talk in words, but they can be great at music. Good taste, but that wasn't the sound that concerned me.

 _Excuse me,_ I thought at Blue-Green-Six, as politely as I could manage. I wasn't feeling polite at all, but face it, I didn't want to offend my host. Not when I relied on it to get me as far away from Preservation as possible.

 _Yes?_ Blue-Green-Six thought back at me. Not the word, of course, so much as a general feeling of query and openness to contact.

 _I thought I was your only passenger,_ I said. I sent my thoughts slowly, trying not to let my alarm leak through.

A burbling feeling of happiness answered me.

"Mrrrow!" came the sound again. This time it was definitely recognizable as the meowing of a cat. To be specific, a calico with a notch in her ear, and eerie golden eyes, who jumped out of a locker, unsheathed her claws, and scratched them across the deck.

I yelped and sprang back. I'd been on missions with humans that kept pets before. Some of the humans had expected me to take care of the pets for them, which had gone about as well as you'd expect. I did my very best for the pets, but I felt bad for them. After all, the kinds of people who leave their pets to a murderbot are generally not the kinds of people who ought to have pets in the first place.

Plus, I'd learned the hard way that cats in particular often treat murderbots like we're _cuddly_. I personally found that stressful. Cats, in my experience, would demand to be petted just as I was getting to the most interesting fight scene in  Sanctuary Moon, or gnaw on any exposed flesh to demand more food in perfectly full food bowls, or worst of all, sit in my lap and dig their claws in when I tried to get up in response to the humans' latest demands.

This cat didn't look like it was any different from the previous ones I'd become acquainted with. Despite my distinctly forbidding body language, she advanced on me. I groaned, even though I knew it wouldn't stop her. I could hear the distinct motor-thrum of her purr. She had quite a loud one, too.

 _Can you get this cat away from me?_ I asked Blue-Green-Six rather plaintively before the patent absurdity of the request occurred to me. Blue-Green-Six did have some waldoes and so on to take care of routine maintenance tasks around its ship body. I didn't think any of them were up to catching a _cat_.

Besides, Blue-Green-Six was very definitely amused. _Friend,_ it thought at me. _Warm. Purr._

The calico cat paced around me, purring all the while, and looked up at me with those wide amber eyes. It was freaky the way they reflected back the light in the hold. I was momentarily distracted by an image of a cat in a cat-shaped armor suit. Did they even _make_ armor for cats? Surely I would have heard about it if so. No, if you needed to take a cat out into a hostile atmosphere, or God forbid, vacuum, you probably used a specially shielded pet carrier. I'd encountered some of _those_.

The cat had taken advantage of my distraction to rub against my ankles. Fortunately, one thing they _do_ instill in murderbots is a basic sense of balance. We wouldn't be any good for murdering if we tripped over our feet, after all. I held still while the cat experimentally nosed my shin guards. I'd dealt with hostile alien worm creatures and incredibly creepy lizard-things with knife-like teeth. A little calico cat wasn't going to get the better of me.

The purring wasn't getting any softer. _All right,_ I thought at Blue-Green-Six, _where do you keep her food?_ His? Her? Its? I'd heard somewhere that calicos were she-cats, but I could have misunderstood, or the human talking about the subject could have been mistaken. _And is she fixed?_

It took a little work to get the second part across to Blue-Green-Six. It flashed an image of the closet where it kept the cat's food at me, so I headed in that direction. And as for the cat's ability to breed, Blue-Green-Six assured me that the cat-- _friend warm purr_ \--was like us. That is, it didn't have the wherewithal to make little cats anymore, which was good, because I really didn't fancy taking care of a surprise litter of kittens.

The cat followed me with great interest, ears pricked and tail standing straight up, once she figured out where I was going. Her food bowl was bolted to the deck in a closet that had been left open for her convenience, ditto her water bowl. First I refilled her food bowl, and then I did the same for her water.

"There you go," I said grudgingly.

The cat ignored the food, which was a first for any cat I had ever met. I mean, it was _cat food_. And it wasn't like there was any human food out to distract her.

"What's your problem?" I demanded.

The cat sat back on her haunches, rearing up on her hind legs, and reached up with a paw to tap at my knee. Well, the armor that protected my knee, anyway. Her eyes were wide and golden and beseeching.

 _What does she want?_ I appealed to Blue-Green-Six.

_Friend. Warm. Purr._

Oh. The ship bot wasn't just being descriptive, it was giving me instructions.

I sighed behind my helmet and sat on the deck. "Come here," I said.

The cat didn't need a second invitation. She sprang into my lap and settled in, kneading my thigh while purring even more ecstatically. The fact that I was still in my armor didn't seem to faze her.

Reluctantly, I started scritching her behind the ears. Her eyes closed in pleasure.

_Friend. Warm. Purr._


End file.
